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Comment: Re:How America has withered ... (Score 1) 416

by OldeTimeGeek (#42752775) Attached to: What You Can Do About the Phone Unlocking Fiasco

If you really, honestly, truly think that the unwashed masses had better access to their representatives in an any era, you aren't quite as old as you state.

Congress has NEVER been afraid of its constituents - largely because voters had no real idea of how laws were made. They had the idealized Civics class version which made it sound like everybody was in agreement all of the time - just one big happy family there on Capitol Hill. Disagreements? Never discussed. How money was spread about between states to ease passage of controversial bills? Not a word. People were completely isolated from it and happy to be so. Honestly, do you really think that there would have been a Moon program if the discussion was available outside of Congress? Would the Civil Rights Act have been passed if the details of how Lyndon Johnson made each Congressmen an "offer they couldn't refuse" was on the daily news? If you want to look even earlier, the graft behind the creation of Transcontinental Railroad makes Enron look like rolling a kid for their lunch money. Did the public know about that? Even if they did, do you think that they would have cared?

Between blogs, traditional media and social media, people today have an unprecedented level of information about what goes on in Congress and what their Congresspeople do. America hasn't withered - life is more complex than any time in our history and rather than discussing it, we've chosen to hide from it. People have always chosen what they do with their franchise - we now choose to sit back and whine.

Comment: Re:Good reason for it to be illegal (Score 1) 383

by OldeTimeGeek (#41895589) Attached to: Pull Lever, Don't Snap Shutter: It May Be Illegal To Post Your Ballot
A photo of a ballot is in no way "proof" of how you voted - at least in any way that could be used if there was a question about the vote. Aside from ease of manipulating the picture to show anything that you wanted it to show after the fact, the chain of custody would be nonexistent.

Comment: Re:Good that he reported it (Score 1) 249

People aren't stupid, nor are they insensitive to what they are doing. The reality is that the banks that fund new developments don't really care why there's a delay in a job - just that there is one. Contractors, for good or ill, are very aware that this job and possibly the next one depends upon getting the project done on time. It's just the way things work in construction.

Comment: Re:Good that he reported it (Score 4, Insightful) 249

Common wisdom when my father was in road construction was that if you found a burial or other historical site when excavating, you quietly reburied it and told no one. Especially burial sites. Find one and you're instantaneously one year or more behind schedule.

Comment: Re:When are the x86 Surface tablets coming? (Score 1) 521

by OldeTimeGeek (#41672119) Attached to: Microsoft Surface Pricing Goes Toe-to-Toe With Apple iPad
The copy of Windows XP Tablet edition that came with my Compaq TC1100 was a full-blown OS. The TC was a tablet in the true sense as it could be used without keyboard and XP Tablet edition - like it or not - had everything the desktop version had plus handwriting recognition.

Science may someday discover what faith has always known.

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